All For You
by MelanyeBaggins
Summary: Anakin looks back on what he has lost. Major Ep. III Spoilers.
1. Part One

**All For You**

AU: This fic contains MAJOR SPOILERS FOR EPISODE III as written in the official novellisation by Matthew Stover. Please do not read if you want to be surprised in the theatre!

Disclaimer: All characters depicted are property of George Lucas and no profit is being made from this fic, unless you call satisfaction _profit…._

Summary: Anakin thinks back about the only love of his life.

Mustafar, the end would come there.

Even now, years later, I still try to tell myself that she knew how much I loved her, but really, she never did. How could she? How could she have known how desperate it was, how deeply it went. She never understood.

I did it all for her.

I still remember her beautiful, perfect face; her smile, the softness of her touch, the breath of life from her lips ghosting over mine. That moment, all those years ago on Mustafar, when we were together for the last time – it was so perfect, but only now do I realize it. When it's too late. In that moment we were free – free from the stigma, free from the worry about what 'they' might think, free from the burdening chains of the Jedi. The war was over- I had ended it.

But she never understood –

I had done it all for her.

Obi-Wan – even now that name is like acid in my mouth. The bitterness it leaves in my heart is still as fresh as the day he's left me there, on the molten shore to die alone. But I lived. Lived with every last lie he and the Jedi had ever told me burning in the very core of my heart; the memory of my mother's limp body in my arms, and the realization that had it not been for Obi-Wan, she would be with me now. The truth – that had it not been for him, Padme would be alive today, and our son would have known his father.

But instead she had turned. Twisted by his lies, speaking them to me as if she believed what she said. I had no choice – I had to silence those lips.

But she would never understand.

I did it for her.

And now I am left with the task of searching for our son, the one remnant of her I have any hope of salvaging. Aided by the only man who ever truly cared for me, now frail in his old age, we will make him see the truth – the wisdom and power of the Dark Side. Soon he will be with me, and then perhaps he will understand.

Now I do it all for him.

**Gifts and Curses **

_Yellowcard_

Mary belongs to the words of a song.  
I try to be strong for her, try not to be wrong for her.  
But she will not wait for me, anymore, anymore.  
Why did I say all those things before? I was sure.

(She is the one), but I have a purpose,  
(she is the one), and I have to fight this,  
(she is the one), a villain I can't knock down.

I see your face with every punch I take,  
and every bone I break, it's all for you.  
And my worst pains are words I cannot say,  
still I will always fight on for you.

Mary's alive in the bright New York sky,  
the city lights shine for her, above them I cry for her.  
Everything's small on the ground below, down below.  
What if I fall, then where would I go, would she know?

(She is the one), all that I wanted,  
(she is the one), and I will be haunted,  
(she is the one), this gift is my curse for now.

I see your face with every punch I take,  
and every bone I break, it's all for you.  
And my worst pains are words I cannot say,  
Still I will always fight on for you. Fight on for you ...


	2. Part Two

After a request, (and inspiration from watching Ep. III, IV & V last night, VI this morning), I give you:

Part Two:

Old fool. Only now, at the end, do I understand.

He should have left me on that fiery shore to die.

'_you were the chosen one…'_

I was indeed. I was chosen to instigate change – to take the Jedi Order and destroy it, so that my progeny could build it anew. I see it now in my son's eyes as he looks on my dying body, scarred by my life of hatred and selfishness. If only I hadn't jumped.

'_This is the end for you master, I wish it could be different.'_

_'It's over, Anakin; I have the high ground – don't try it!'_

But I did. And I paid dearly for it. Alas that cruel fate has made it that I was permitted to live a life of fear and hatred, only to be redeemed in the end by my children. It is unfair – to my victims, the countless Jedi and innocent civilians that in cold blood I slaughtered. To the worlds left forever scarred by my mastery. To my own daughter, who will soon learn from her brother her ghastly parentage.

To Padme. My own selfish love being the cause of her demise.

It is wholly unfair that the Force would choose to forgive me – that in that one final act of good, all my wickedness would be forever forgotten.

It is not fair.

"Now go, my son," I struggle to speak, my scarred lungs choking on the very air that gives him life. "Leave me."

"No," he says, and the love in his voice slays me. "I'll not leave you here, I've got to save you!"

'_I've gained this new power so that I can save you, Padme!'_

I flinch. "You already have, Luke." I'll not let my son go down the same dark path I did. "Luke – you were right, you were right about me." About so many things – things that in his same position I got wrong. "Tell your sister, you were right." And, I almost add, tell her I love her. I could never tell her that. She would never understand. Not after what I did to her.

"Father…" I hear his voice, but it sounds distant – unreal. My vision blurs and suddenly I see only the force. A figure of light bending over me, telling me he will not leave me, and I know it is my son, and that I have died. And so ends my tragic tale – born a slave, and in the last moment of life, able to break the chains from my back and free myself of my metal bonds.

I look down, and see a sight I though was lost forever – my own hands. My own body. I raise them up to feel my own face, my hair. A hand on my shoulder turns me around, and another long-lost sight greets me. If tears were permitted in the Force, we would both have shed them.

Together again, brother to brother, master and apprentice, we hug, love and forgiveness flowing from us that no words can express. And only then do I understand.

All this time, after all these years.

He had done it all for me.


End file.
